3.2.25
It is a balmy 40 degrees outside right now, but I lit a fire in the house this morning anyway. There is still enough of a chill that seeing logs blazing in the woodstove just gives one a comfy feeling inside. It actually felt hot outside yesterday, I think it may have reached a toasty 65 degrees or more. I know Mother Nature will still have some chilly days ahead for us, but it does at least feel as if spring is around the corner. In fact, the Say’s Phoebes, wonderful cheery little birds, have started to arrive and claim their annual nesting sites around the farm. The Sandhill cranes are on the move south, so yes, spring is coming!
It has been another hectic week on the farm for not only has it flown by at quite an alarming rate, but I have also been put through a plethora of tests as we try to seek out the root cause of my dicky heart and fatigue. From chest x-rays to an extensive pulmonary breathing test and blood work, the underlying factor still seems to point to an electrical malfunction with the old ticker. Everything else about me seems to be in tip top shape! I did wear another Zio heart monitor and that disclosed my heart arrhythmia had increased from a 16.1% burden of FLB’s – Funny Little Beats – in late October to 20.4% by mid-February. So, my heart is definitely not happy. Next step is to see the electrophysiologist at the end of this month. Since the “plumber” could not fix me up, maybe the “electrician” can!
The other great challenge we have had in the past fortnight has been with the orphan calf and yet another cow catastrophe! As I mentioned in my previous story, one of our beef girls decided she wanted nothing to do with the calf she gave birth to. She simply had it and walked away leaving the poor mite literally freezing to death under a juniper tree. We found him, warmed him up then were able to graft him on to our Willow cow, who is half Jersey and had just had a baby of her own that same morning. We moved Willow and the two babies out of the beef cow field and brought them down to the milk cow paddocks where I could have them in a smaller area so as to keep a close eye on the orphan calf. For the first few days Willow let the orphan baby suckle right alongside her own calf, mooing to him and treating him as one of her own. We were thrilled! Then all of a sudden Willow had a change of heart.
I had moved Willow and the calves into a slightly larger adjacent pen where a shelter filled with bedding would allow the calves to stay out of the nasty weather. By this time, the orphan laddie was having a bit harder time moving around as his hind legs, which had been quite frozen before we found him, were making it challenging for him to get around as quickly as his new sibling. Whether it was this that made Willow take exception to him we will never know, but it was obvious she was not going to let the orphan nurse unless I stood beside her while the calf suckled away. This was not going to work, and I resigned myself to having a bottle baby on our hands.
Then, another idea came to me. I had already thought about weaning Lass’s calf from her as it was time. However, when I initially separated the two, Lass’s udder was still producing too much milk to just let her be. I did not want to milk her myself as my goal was to dry her up and retire her, but with the amount of milk she was producing, I let her calf back in with her. Now none of our dairy cows have ever been the sort to just willingly accept calves that were not their own. Lass and Heidi are definitely not willing mothers to strange calves! Oh, I have cajoled Lass in the past to accept a surrogate baby when she unfortunately had just lost her own calf, but whereas some dairy cows will gladly accept strangers nursing on them, Lass and Heidi are not of that ilk! Yet a thought was brewing in my mind, and I decided to give it a try.
Turning Willow and her own calf back out in the beef cow field, I separated Lass from her big calf and put her in the smaller pen with the orphan baby. Standing beside Lass while she munched on hay and grain, I guided the tottering calf to a teat and watched while he contentedly suckled away. Yes, I had to stay by Lass and supervise, but at least she would stand there patiently while the baby filled his belly. This might just work!
Then, as if Fate was testing our resolve yet again when it comes to cows, one of our other beef cows calved last Sunday and two days after giving birth to a lovely heifer, she went down. This cow, who happens to be a daughter of Willow, has always been a great mum. She is a bossy girl to the other cows – except Willow – but raises a great calf. Being Willow’s daughter, she is ¼ Jersey bred and has a lovely udder for raising calves but not nearly a large enough udder to be considered a “milk cow”. However, when a milk cow goes down, as in lays down and cannot rise up on her own shortly to a couple of days after calving, one can assume milk fever has set in. As a rule, a bottle or two of a calcium/magnesium solution quickly brings the cow to her feet and back to normal. This cow was acting just like she had milk fever.
Dashing to the house I grabbed my big cow IV needle and line plus a bottle of cal/mag that I always keep on hand just in case. Getting a line into the cow was easy and I soon had the medicine flowing then gave her a second bottle but with little response. She tried rising but still could not quite get the job done. Catching her hungry calf, I managed to get the baby to drink from her mum’s udder so at least I knew she was receiving precious colostrum. Mum was bright eyed, hungry and thirsty so that gave us hope she would soon be back on her feet.
After two days, it was obvious the cow was not going to get up. Occasionally a cow will damage nerves in her hind end after calving and sometimes, once a cow goes down and will not rise even with help, they simply give up! This girl does not seem to be in pain at all, will occasionally try to get up, is bright eyed and alert so we are keeping her well fed and watered. Not giving up on her quite yet, there was still the matter of her calf to deal with. A down cow will quickly dry up her milk supply and her calf was becoming more and more hungry despite being supplemented with bottles of milk during the day. Lass was producing plenty of milk so the decision to move the calf down to the milk cow paddock was made.
Lass is not exactly thrilled at having two hungry calves nursing on her but bless her heart she just stands there with a very tolerant look on her face as with a calf on each side they fill their bellies! It was and is, still a bit touch and go with the one orphan calf. He has been enjoying the warm sunshine of the past few days and is getting around a little easier now, but I know he could still take a turn for the worse at any time. The damage done to tissues deep in his legs is unknown. Some days he is better than others. Each morning before I head down to milk Heidi and check on the calves I wonder if it would not be kinder to put him down. Then as I peek into the pen, there he is, bright eyed and perky as he struggles to his feet and heads towards Lass for breakfast. He is not ready to give up yet, so neither will I.
